New Botting Method

Minyassa

What we need is for some white hat to decide they hate bots enough to write a bot that's there to foil the other bots somehow. Like dragging mobs onto them automatically, or something, and keep them dead. I don't know if that's even possible but if there are people writing bots to farm resources and try to mimic player behavior then maybe someone could mimic the player behavior of trying to keep bots from interfering with actual players.

Hotel6

I'm a bit naive but what are botters farming for and what do they profit from it?

starkerealm

Armatesz wrote: »

show previous quotes

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Kelces wrote: »

The_Brosteen wrote: »

Dont waste your time, they don't care

Or rather, they didn't realize, they can make more money by those accounts having to be renewed and therefore would get them more $$$!

Except for the fact like 95% of those accounts are either stolen or used with stolen cc's, and then people have to charge back and ESO has to give back to the bank.

I guess the 5% are us console players as they just create accounts and have 5 gamerscore going around and collecting stuff. Yeah I've heard horror stories of friends of mine getting their accounts stolen.

He's talking about 95% of bot accounts, not the playerbase as a whole. Which, I mean, I don't have any actual statistical data, but that sounds kinda plausible.

Part of the problem with gold selling is that this is a way some individuals will launder funds from CC fraud. To be fair, it's more common to load an account up with cash shop items and resell it (which may be part of the reason that Crown Store items are rotated out, come to think of it.) Then the fraudster flips the account on ebay or elsewhere, and pockets clean money, while any fraud investigation dead ends with the game.

Ashtaris

1. A bunch of people rage about bots enough that ZOS actually takes notice
2. ZOS has a GM come in to zap bots to oblivion
3. Botters don’t care and come back in full force
4. Goto 1

SirDopey

ZOS doesn't care about botting, they really don't.

I've reported numerous ones over the last couple of weeks and they're all still there, running their predetermined routes...

Skullstachio

ZOS should really update their ToS To prevent the use of bots and that it could be a bannable offense for Using a fake account to harvest nodes, etc. not to mention selling said bot accounts to third parties could also be a bannable offense.

efster

As others have said, I really don't think ZOS cares about bots. These threads are a constant on the forums, and nothing ever changes.

The Class Representative setup seems to be working quite nicely; maybe ZOS should add a Human Representative to open a dialogue with the devs about bots.

generalmyrick

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

So, I was doing the quest for Shattered Grove in Auridon when I noticed 3 bots harvesting bears and wolves. However, instead of all three running a predetermined course together in single file, they did the following. They were 3 stamsorcs all with really long nonsensical gibberish names. They would start stealthed, stacked on each other next to the same tree until the bears and wolves all respawned (exact time, every time). They would then pop Lightning Form and all three would take off running in a different direction on a specific course to agro the mobs on ‘their route’ and then burn them down with an AOE at the end of their route. They would then return to the exact same tree and repeat the process. To determine if they were bots I tried interacting with them and even poaching their pulls. I got no responses so I reported them. Looks like botters are trying to be more clever. What sucks about bots in this location is it’s a quest hub and you need one of those bears to complete your quest.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_MattFiror
@ZOS_RichLambert

what if someone made 100 bots and spread them out through all the zones? so as not to draw attention...and gave them legit sounding names...

would we know it existed? could it be happening right now?

TempPlayer

goldenflameslinger wrote: »

I usually report suspected bots. However, part of me always feels bad because what if some level 6 kid is really named "asdfydasbefisbadifbiwebfi" and is just AFK for a few minutes and just happens to be squatted down on top of a node spawn. I would feel really bad if he got banned because I was profiling him.

Lol
I'm sure they will check on whether the player reported is a true bot or not. At least I hope they do.......In the worst case, the player got kicked won't know who report them. Otherwise I get some packing and moving to do.

Drummerx04

Well, if you want to do your part to report bots on PC, you can use my Bot Scanner addon. It makes reporting even a massive bot train quick and easy. (Link in signature)

Kelces

Runs wrote: »

show previous quotes

Kelces wrote: »

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Kelces wrote: »

The_Brosteen wrote: »

Dont waste your time, they don't care

Or rather, they didn't realize, they can make more money by those accounts having to be renewed and therefore would get them more $$$!

Except for the fact like 95% of those accounts are either stolen or used with stolen cc's, and then people have to charge back and ESO has to give back to the bank.

Let's say this is correct, than there is obviously a method of determining what is a "stolen" account. Otherwise those numbers are purely made up...

ZOS either waits until there are a ton, or until the stolen cards are actually found and charged back, then does a mass banning on the stolen card created accounts.

Evidence of this was seen a few years back when tons of people who thought they bought legitimate codes, from those scummy reseller sites, lost their accounts. Some of the people had been playing for several months before they lost their account. ZOS did allow them to keep the accounts if they bought the game through ZOS or an approved reseller.

Although 103.65% of statistics on the internet are made up.

Who would be that naive to buy a game there and not the regular way?

Banana

What sort of deal were they offering

Kelces

generalmyrick wrote: »

show previous quotes

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

So, I was doing the quest for Shattered Grove in Auridon when I noticed 3 bots harvesting bears and wolves. However, instead of all three running a predetermined course together in single file, they did the following. They were 3 stamsorcs all with really long nonsensical gibberish names. They would start stealthed, stacked on each other next to the same tree until the bears and wolves all respawned (exact time, every time). They would then pop Lightning Form and all three would take off running in a different direction on a specific course to agro the mobs on ‘their route’ and then burn them down with an AOE at the end of their route. They would then return to the exact same tree and repeat the process. To determine if they were bots I tried interacting with them and even poaching their pulls. I got no responses so I reported them. Looks like botters are trying to be more clever. What sucks about bots in this location is it’s a quest hub and you need one of those bears to complete your quest.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_MattFiror
@ZOS_RichLambert

what if someone made 100 bots and spread them out through all the zones? so as not to draw attention...and gave them legit sounding names...

would we know it existed? could it be happening right now?

This would be ineffective, most bots aren't very complex in their behaviour, they need simple repeatable paths and action sequences. That's why for example they use templars for the most time to farm XP, because it is easy to survive through "sweeps".

It's not that hard to tell, even for someone who never encountered a bot in action. They are just acting differenty, very noticeable. Somehow curious that ZoS takes such a complicated approach, since even players have access to nice software that can detect bots. Seriously, how professional is this for a company like that?

Algorax

Nothing new: i found this method back in 2015 in greenshade. I reported it, ofc.